Poet jailed for life in Qatar insult trial has term cut to 15 years

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - A Qatari poet jailed for life for criticising the emir and attempting to incite revolt had his sentence cut to 15 years on Monday, in a case human rights groups said showed hypocrisy by the Gulf state, which has supported Arab uprisings abroad.

In his verses, Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami praised the Arab Spring revolts that toppled four dictators, often with the help of money and other support from Qatar, a close U.S. ally which also backs rebels in Syria.

But the poet also criticised Qatar's absolute monarch and spoke, for example, of "sheikhs playing on their PlayStations".

He was sentenced to life in prison three months ago, but he appealed against the conviction and sentence, arguing he should be freed as there was no evidence that he had recited the offending verses in public and so no basis for charging him with incitement.

2. Free speech ain't cheap there

3. Nothing says 21st century barbarian better than jailing your modern day culture and arts!

Hey Qatar, remember the days of the Age of Empires Lan tournaments? Sheikhs so flush with cash you flew in a bunch of top gamers (no woman allowed lol) and had yourself a prize tournament. You guys really sucked at that game and had to hire experts for training, use the map hack, cheat so you wouldn't get beat.

The Sheikhs with the same attitues today they had back then. Noone dis our PlayStations mad skillz,make poems, love puppies or respect free speech or woman.

5. Qatar

A close US ally and, indeed, supposedly one of the more enlightened Middle-Eastern states.

I'm still utterly stunned that Qatar got the World Cup. Countries with genuine footballing pedigree, like Holland, were deemed too small to host it, but Qatar, a tiny dictatorship and slave state with summer temperatures in the broiling range and with quite literally zero footballing (soccer) pedigree gets it? Absolutely unblievable. To even begin to imagine the absurdity of this: it's like announcing the next Super Bowl will be held in Nome, Alaska. It was one of those moments that you absolutely know everyone and everything is corrupt and they're not even bothering to hide it any longer.